


Lilies Are His Favorite

by AlexiaNite



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Heartbreak, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 08:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18587362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaNite/pseuds/AlexiaNite
Summary: A mission that went sideways puts Kakashi in a terrible position, coughing up lily petals...Iruka's favorite flower.Written for the May 2019 Armada prompt: Hanahaki Disease.





	Lilies Are His Favorite

He knew something was wrong when the coughing fits started. The first time he coughed up a petal he knew something terrible had happened. Lilies. He was coughing up petals from his love’s favorite flower. This couldn’t be happening. He’d only been gone for a few days. What had happened? He alerted the Hokage that a team needed to be sent after him. She was skeptical but agreed when she saw how panicked he was. He didn’t tell her about the cough or the lily petals. 

They found him just barely clinging to life. His teammates were dead, killed in what looked to be an ambush. Things weren’t looking good for his love either. Extensive brain damage, the Hokage told him. He didn’t want to believe it, refused to believe it, but still, the petals came. His love was in a coma for nearly a month and the day he woke up should have been the happiest day of his life. Surely that meant he could be done with his incessant coughing. His love would be returned to him. Instead, he was met with a blank stare. “I”m sorry. Do I know you?”

Amnesia, the Hokage told him. His love may never remember him or the love they shared. It sent him into a coughing fit, which meant hacking up lily petals all over Tsunade’s desk. She was less than pleased to learn he’d been hiding his condition. A liability or so she said. He didn’t care. His love was alive and that’s all that mattered, right? They would get back to where they were. He got him to fall in love with him once. He could do it again.

He brought Iruka home from the hospital to his apartment, took care of him. He was grateful but still didn’t remember a thing about him. The coughing fits got worse and he couldn’t hide them from the chunin any longer. The look of sorrow on the man’s face when he realized he was sick and that he was the reason nearly broke his heart. He left soon after. Leaving a note in his wake that he couldn’t keep hurting him. Every time he returned from a mission, injured or suffering from chakra deletion, the Hokage asked him about the coughing. He would minimize how badly it was affecting him. Every time she asked him to get it treated, he refused. He wouldn’t kill his love for Iruka.

They struck up a friendship after he moved out. The other man was slowly regaining his memories, but still nothing of him, of their love. A coughing fit in the middle of a fight with a missing nin was nearly the end of him. He barely made it through the gates, collapsing in front of the chunin guarding the front gate. Tsunade was furious when he woke up as she delivered the cold, harsh truth. He was dying. It had been a year since Iruka’s return and every day he knew the coughing got worse. The Hokage didn’t mince her words as she explained that she either treated him or he would be dead within a few months. As it was, he couldn’t return to active duty and was inching closer to death with every breath. 

He thought he would be heartbroken when he woke up from surgery, but instead, he just felt empty. Iruka. The thought of him didn’t bring him sorrow as it once had. It took a while to recover, having had the surgery on top of already being injured. Tsunade would never have done it while he was injured if he wasn’t so dangerously close to dying. Gai visited him of course, but never Iruka. Before the surgery, that would have pained him greatly. Now, there was nothing. No feelings of any sort for the other man.

He had never been happier to be released from the hospital before. That night a pounding on his door woke him up. He was not expecting to see a distraught Iruka on his doorstep. “Why? Why did you do it?” There were tears in his eyes. “I didn’t even know you were in the hospital. No one told me.” He bit back a sob, shoving a box into his hands. “All those times we spent together I thought…I thought you wanted me.”

“What’s in the box, Iruka?”

“The letters you wrote me from before I was hurt. I read them all, practically memorized them. They’ve been all I could think about and now…” Iruka slumped against his door as he started to cough. His eyes widen in horror as violet petals hit his floor. The first flower Iruka had ever given him. The chunin looked up at him, tears in his eyes. “How could you make me fall in love with you only to rip it all away, Kakashi?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this. If you're interested in joining a cool AO3 FB group, the link is down below. We are starting to do monthly prompts that everyone in the group is welcome to participate in. This is our first one.
> 
>    
> My Alexia Nite tumblr: [Lex](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/alexianite)  
> My art tumblr: [Art](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/adirtymartinisgalaxyart)  
> Join our awesome new AO3 facebook group: [Armada](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951/)


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